


Roads

by sensitivebore



Category: Downton Abbey
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-14
Updated: 2013-02-14
Packaged: 2017-11-29 06:07:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,448
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/683709
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sensitivebore/pseuds/sensitivebore
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Carson and Hughes, and roads.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Roads

She's walking home by the lake with her little basket of shopping, decides to go under the little footpath bridge, to look at the spring crocuses, the irises that are blooming now. Dusk is falling but she's not too far from Downton, she can spare the time. Elsie walks along slowly, trails her fingertips over the high pink blooms, the feather purple petals, and footsteps echoing some distance back remind her to get on her way, to move along. Her pace hastens and she heads for home.

Dusk falls. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she realises that the footsteps from earlier haven't faded, that they're clicking steadily behind her still, but she dismisses it as chance of meeting — someone is traveling the same direction, it's of no great concern.

Still, her steps quicken.

As do the ones behind her.

There is a small touch of anxiety now but being out close to dark always makes her a bit touchy, a bit skittish. There's no need to worry. Elsie swallows, chews at her thumbnail. The light is a lovely soft violet and the sun has dropped almost to nothing, nothing but a crescent of orange remains in the west and the driveway to Downton is almost in sight, almost, but —

The steady crunching, gritting against gravel, grows closer, faster.

Her fists close tightly and her heart is hard with an unpleasant staccato thumping, her breath is just a little fast. It's nothing, nothing at all. A farmhand, a stable boy who doesn't have the sense not to follow a solitary woman too closely when it's this near dark. Elsie finds herself wishing she had never made the late-day trip into town to pick up sewing notions for Miss O'Brien, to put in the grocery order. She could have called it in, left the sewing supplies until tomorrow.

The steps haven't ceased and the drive is so very close now and if she can just reach it, if she can just put a foot on the smooth white stones, she will be home free, she will be able to turn, even, and scold this fool behind her. It's not a bogeyman or a monster, after all, she reasons; just someone with no social graces, no common sense. Her mind won't allow her to entertain darker possibilities, darker notions, but her subconscious is already there and when the sounds speed up to the point of a run, she breaks.

Holding her hem up from the ground she runs for the drive; runs like she hasn't since she was a child, runs without looking back, without pause, without stopping to rest, runs until small tendrils of her hair slip loose and her breath is tearing and her face is red, runs until she reaches the front door, the main entrance, and bursts through, slams it behind her, leans on it.

She's shaking, gulping air, and he's there, of course he is, he's always here in the front hall at this time making sure it's prepared for the dinner guests that will arrive in an hour or so. Carson frowns at the sudden noise, the slam of the door, turns to scold, but he faces goes pale, hard at the sight of her. She's all red cheeks and messy hair and fearful eyes and shaking hands and she hates it, hates that he's seeing her like this when it was most likely nothing but a young boy being foolish, but it had frightened her badly and —

Elsie covers her mouth with a hand to stifle a sob. His hands are on her now, firmly cupping her shoulders, pulling her hands away from her face and he is furious, there is something furious in his eyes, in the set of his jaw, as he questions her.

"What is it? What's happened? Talk to me, who's done something to you?" His face is so near and his thumbs are brushing the long side curves of her neck and his voice is thundering through her mind, she can almost feel it in her body. She takes a deep breath, lets it out shakily, clasps one of his wrists.

"It's all right, Mr. Carson, it's nothing at all. I just — there was someone on the road and I — I overreacted, I'm sure." Elsie swabs at her eyes with her sleeve, tries to make a smile to put him at ease, to drain some of the tension out of the big shoulders, the bent neck.

"What do you mean someone? Who?" His eyes search her face and he notes her out of breath state and his fingers flex and tighten a little on her arms. "Have you been running?"

Elsie shakes her head again, pats at him reassuringly, doesn't want him needlessly upset. "I just — it was getting dark and someone was on the road behind me and, well — I don't know, it seemed for a moment like he was following me but I'm sure — "

His hands are gone and the door is open and a gentle wind is blowing through the front hall, scattering petals from the flower arrangement on the big hall table. She turns, picks up her shopping basket, puts it safely aside. Goes after him. He's outside, scanning the darkness speculatively, that tight clench of teeth still present, that hard line of brow. She puts a tentative hand on his arm.

"It's all right, come inside. I just — I just got frightened."

After a last long look, he allows her to guide him back in, and he closes the heavy front door, turns the latch.

"We're calling the constable immediately." Carson puts a hand on her shoulder, kneads lightly, compulsively. "You're positive nothing else happened?"

Elsie smiles, touches his lapel. "And tell them what, Mr. Carson? Someone walked behind me on a public road? That's hardly an offense. I didn't even look behind me, I'm sure it was nothing. Just my own stupidity, getting spooked after dark." She starts to turn away only to gasp when he swings her back around, holds her in place. His hand gropes her shoulder, helplessly touches her neck, her cheek, her hair.

She's shocked at the contact, doesn't know how to react, what to do. Doesn't know what this means — she does, really, she does know — and she doesn't protest or encourage, just watches him with fascination, almost a remote curiosity to know what he'll do next.

"It's not foolish, horrible things happen to —" He bites back his words, forces out something else, she knows what he was going to say, of course she does,  _horrible things happen to women alone at night_. "You — don't go anymore, after dark, don't — ask for a car to drive you. Or wait for me to walk with you." His voice isn't imperious for once, it isn't authoritarian, but almost pleading in some strange way. Elsie blinks, nods her agreement. He doesn't move. She nods again. He still doesn't release her.

"Mr. Carson? You're still — perhaps you meant to let me go now?"

Carson repeats his small touch of her cheek, her jaw, and then pulls her against him gently, wraps her in a tight embrace. She falls into it, is softly crushed against all of that good-smelling linen and pressed cotton, is warm and enfolded against all of that big body, and she would like to live there, she thinks wildly, she would like to live in that space, she fits nicely, she'd be no trouble, she'd just like to stay there for a good long time. Her fingers hold tight to his back but she's careful not to crush his clothing, to wrinkle him, to muss all of that perfect precision.

He swallows hard, exhales a long breath, and before he can pull away she joins her hands behind his neck and pushes up onto her toes, kisses him fully on the mouth; it's a chaste kiss, a soft, warm touch, the gentle brush of moth wings against silk, the catch of a lit match to new cotton.

She untangles them, takes up her basket. He murmurs an excuse and takes his leave into the main room, and she begins to slowly descend the fourteen steps that will take her downstairs.

Carson touches his mouth gently, and he will feel it all night, all of it. The fear that she had been hurt, molested in some way; the relief that she hadn't been; the fury that someone had panicked her, sent her fleeing into the cool night with a pounding heart and wide eyes.

And now her lips on his. This new paving stone in the path they've worn between them. This tender thing filled with deep emotion.

 


End file.
